


Natural Selection

by AKK



Series: Shattered Souls [12]
Category: Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
Genre: Gen, STP, genetical engineering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-07-09
Updated: 2002-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-07 00:14:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AKK/pseuds/AKK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Date: 2082] Max Sawyer has to flee Earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Natural Selection

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks go to 'Trivia' S. Blank for editing.
> 
> Some of the names in this story are variations of "Gregor Johann Mendel" who discovered the famous Mendelian laws of (biol.) transmission. Any resemblances with the name of "Robert Mandell" are purely coincidental. Of course, as E. Kishon once said: Even coincidental resemblances are resemblances...

_As natural selection acts solely by accumulating slight, successive, favourable variations, it can produce no great or sudden modification; it can act only by very short and slow steps. Hence the canon of `Natura non facit saltum,' which every fresh addition to our knowledge tends to make more strictly correct, is on this theory simply intelligible. [...]_

_Man does not actually produce variability; he only [...] exposes organic beings to new conditions of life, and then nature acts on the organisation, and causes variability._ [The Origin Of The Species] by Charles Darwin

In the second half of the 21st Century that was no longer true.

The man who slept exhausted in the worn out second cockpit seat knew that all too well.

 

**2082 – Now**

Strictly spoken, the Mendell wasn't a passenger ship. The papers identified it as a light freighter, but its Captain, Gregor Johann Roberts, conveniently forgot that if someone paid enough for the transit. In fact, this forgetfulness was the reason the Mendell, originally a blockade-runner in the Colonial Wars, was still in the business though it wasn't traveling under the protective flag of one of the big companies. The various companies had claimed a lot of the colonial worlds for themselves until these worlds had decided that that was a protection 'from' and not against something and had declared most of these suffocating economical treaties obsolete, ending the company dictatorship but unfortunately also most of the inter-colonial freight transport, which left the owners of small independent vessels like the Mendell in the lurch.

GJ threw a look back at the sleeping man. He had long since learned not to ask his passengers any questions on the three or four week-long travel to one of the now independent ex-colonial planets. Often, he didn't even know their names. They seldom got to know his either. And that was most likely better for all concerned.

However, this one was different.

He estimated him of being in his forties, possibly even in his fifties, given his white hair and wrinkled face that spoke of humor and somehow gentleness, which fit with the plain, but good clothing and the proper, manicured hands. Definitely not his usual runaway criminal on his flight to the lawless outskirt planets. The man had paid in cash, no ecards or risky trusts or something, but plain cash.

A less honest being than GJ would likely have considered robbery and a dump into vacuum, but the Mendell had a name for reliability – and a scar across a third of his rib cage had taught Roberts that even harmless looking being could be dangerous.

The military APG he'd spotted later had confirmed his beliefs in that regard. Onboard a ship an LG couldn't be fired at dangerous energy levels without risk of penetrating the hull, so a firefight would have been a calculated risk, but those Automated Projectile Guns were unpredictable in that regard. He was glad he hadn't even considered the plan. Somehow, the passenger made him curious. Curious enough that he finally broke his iron rule of not asking anything but the liquidity of the passenger and the desired aim, and begged for the name. And the man gathered himself tiredly up in the only barely comfortable chair, and said after a moment: "Tom Sawyer."

GJ grinned. "And your best friend is Huck Finn, right?" At the astonished look of his passenger. "Hey, just because I fly a puny freighter like the Mendell doesn't mean I never saw a school from the inside. – Anyway, it's okay. I'm JR for you. – Do you like Twain's writing?"

  


Max sighed. Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" was the last story he'd read to Billy. Frances had made him a scene afterwards for feeding their nice boy ideas for pranks and nonsense. That his five-year-old son had fallen asleep in the middle of the scene with the fence painting hadn't mattered to her, that he seldom caused any trouble hadn't either.

Max remembered that at the sight of his sleeping son he'd wished he'd been able to read this story to another five-year-old some years ago, who'd never have fallen asleep in it, and who likely would have kept them all on their toes with the mischief he'd have made for sure afterwards...

The guilt about that feeling had stabbed at him. It wasn't Billy's fault that he wasn't as bright and lively as Joe's boy had been back then in spite of the circumstances he was living in. Billy was calmer, less curious about the world around him, and in a way it was better so, otherwise Frances wouldn't have been able to care for him while he was at work during the weeks.

They had always had kind of a 'weekend marriage', with him working at a secret military project and his wife, Frances, being the ultimate female home broker, online from dawn till dusk, and not necessarily dawn and dusk of the time-zone they were living in. Nobody had been more surprised than Frances herself when she'd learned that at the age of thirty-eight she really was going to have a child. She'd thought she had an upset stomach when she'd gone to the doctor.

Their relationship hadn't really endured Billy's first year. What had been a warm home with agreement and tolerance on both sides when they were both at home had soon turned into a nest for Frances and her child, with Max not much more than a guest, welcomed in the beginning, but only felt as a disturbance as time went by. But they had seen each other seldom enough that they never really had a breakup.

Now, aware that he'd most likely never return to their house, he realized bitterly that such a dispute possibly would have been better. At least, it would have sorted things out. And whatever it might have brought, at least she'd have known how it hurt him when she told her son aloud, that 'his daddy is the man that visits us on weekends.' Us. As if he didn't belong to them.

He sighed. That was past. A wasted chance. Lost. He had to forget it.

He'd made the decision a long time ago.

Without even noticing it.

And all he could do now, after InterSec had stormed his house, threatened his family and confiscated his personal files in the name of Senator Wheiner, was to beg his friend to keep an eye on them, too...

  


GJ threw another look at his passenger. Definitely not his usual customer in many ways. But absolutely normal in one: he didn't seem to want to talk. Okay.

 

**Three days ago**

"I should send you a stuffed animal when something's wrong with your family?" Joe asked, astonished.

"Yes," Max kept sorting the few belongings he had in his room at the base, "this one would be best. I'll recognize it."

Walsh caught it as he tossed it towards him, looked at it and raised a brow. "A hedgehog?"

"It reminded me of an error I made with the boy I didn't repeat."

"What happened?"

"I folded a paper plane while he was around at my desk before I continued working on his samples, consciously leaving him out of my sight – remember that, Joe. He'll never do anything if you watch him. He's too cautious for that. At first, I thought he hadn't taken the bait, but later, after I was done, I discovered that he hadn't used the paper sheet I left lying around for him but that he changed mine." He hastily sorted through his belongings. "He improved it with strengthened wing edges and tailfins. The thing really flew afterwards, my version just spun to the floor. Anyway, I was so impressed that I asked him the next day how he did it and he denied doing anything immediately." Max sighed and looked over to his friend. "He never touched paper in my lab again unless he was directly ordered, and then he produced nothing better than any of the others would." He nodded at the stuffed animal in Walsh's hand. "He's like a hedgehog. Whenever something comes close he curls up and erects his spines, sometimes for months." He pulled the straps around his bag tight and scanned the room with a final quick glance. "I must go, or they'll catch me here." He stopped at the door and looked back at the commander. "You have to find somehow a way to get him two extra liters of water a day, Joe," he said urgently, "he needs it. Your boy's strong, Joe. Despite PTS, IP, and all that shit, he's still more than a weapon. Help him to stay that way."

"Max, I–"

"Don't." Sawyer shook his head, interrupting him. He had to keep going or he'd collapse right on the spot. "I don't regret what I did, Joe. Not at all. Your boy's possibly the one good thing to come out of the hell this project turned out to be. I just hope you can get him out of here before he really loses."

"I'll take care of Frances and Billy."

He nodded. "Thank you. If something's really wrong, send the hedgehog to the IPS-number box. It'll reach me."

"I will. Good luck."

"Keep it. You two are going to need it much more than me when the senator puts the information in the confiscated papers together correctly. Maybe I'm wanted." He tried to sound eager as he slung his bag over his shoulder, and knew he wasn't convincing with it. "But I'm surely not important enough to search all the independent planets for me."

"InterSec is already on the base, Max." Joe gave him an APG. "Hurry."

He shook his head. "I can't use those things. You know that."

"You don't have to use it. But you're leaving the planet, wear it in plain sight then. On spacecraft APGs are unpredictable weapons. Whoever you run across will think twice before risking an attack." He nodded towards the door. "Use the supply tunnel. And if you want it or not. Good luck."

This time, he nodded.

 

**Now**

Max sighed again, aware that Joseph would have a much harder stand than he had. As the military base commander he didn't have a reason to regularly spend time with the boy to find out what was going on with him, and in addition, Shane trusted him even less, was even more on the guard. The PTS had taken care for that. And likely the thing with the A's. He was sure that the boy had figured out a long time ago which two persons on the base could assign A's, and Joe was one of them, which meant that he literally had the power over life and death. And he doubted that the little Goose could believe in a merciful god.

 

**Three days ago**

He hurried through unlighted corridors and nearly collided with the tall shadow that suddenly appeared in front of him. At fifteen, the boy had almost reached his full height, with glowing eyes that scrutinized his face in the dark. For a brief moment Max wondered how he had escaped the sleeping cubicle, but he had no time left to worry about that. "Goose, I'm sorry, but I have to leave."

"I know." He stood dead still, barely more than a shadow in the unlighted corridor. With any other trooper, Max would have been frightened out of his mind now.

"And I can't come back."

The boy closed his eyes quickly. Barely more than a longer blinking. "I know that, too. Your bag's stuffed, and authorities are frisking the lab." He drew a deep breath. "Make it."

He recognized it as the farewell that it was meant to be. "I will, I'm a geneticist. I know everything about 'survival of the fittest'."

The boy's face stayed earnest. Max didn't expect anything from the young trooper and was surprised when he spoke anyway. "It's an illusion. Among humans it's _survival of the seemingly fittest_."

"There's one last thing – Trust the commander." He saw the sudden wariness in the Goose's eyes and continued before the boy could retreat. "He doesn't want you harmed in any way." Gods, he wished he'd have more time to convince him.

Goose made a step to the side, breaking the moment. "Your hunters are close. Don't waste time."

  


**Now**

He just hoped that Joe would find a way to get the boy out of that living hell Negata's project had become over the years.

Nobody deserved such a treatment. And for sure not a child like the little Goose.

He'd been disappointed when Billy had fallen asleep during his reading, when he hadn't been interested in making things out of wood and paint, but now he thought of his friend who'd never even gotten the chance to tell his son a fairy tale in the evening, or to fly a kite, or go fishing, to a baseball match, or whatever, who instead had to worry about untrained full body transformations, sharp ammunition, drug doses and side effects, close combat and test results.

And he couldn't keep himself from screaming inwardly, that it wasn't fair! That a child who had all this was simply not interested in it and developed with his five years a fascination for slingshots and hand-to-hand fighting that he'd watched with more than just concern, and on the other hand, another one, so lively and curious, who watched the few glimpses of the world he got to see out of great wondering green eyes full of fascination – even joy if he felt unwatched – never got the chance to see all the wonders the world held out for him and instead was forced to be barely more than a weapon.

It wasn't fair!

And an ugly voice oozing of cynicism asked him what kind of a father he was thinking that way about his own _natural_ son.

_This process of selection has been the great agency in the production of the most distinct and useful domestic breeds. That many of the breeds produced by man have to a large extent the character of natural species, is shown by the inextricable doubts whether very many of them are varieties or aboriginal species._ [The Origin Of The Species] by Charles Darwin

And that was no longer true, either.

  


They were approaching their destination planet already.

  


It had all begun when he'd seen the hope and the shattering of it in Joe's face when he'd driven him to the hospital where his family had been brought.

He hadn't thought about helping or helping not back then, sixteen years ago now. It had been one of these decisions _from the heart_ with its inherit certainty that just could not be denied whether one knew the consequences it bore or not. He had to help the commander, just had to use his knowledge – to rescue the unborn.

And he had done without wasting a thought about the fact that he literally committed a crime using artificial DNA on a developing human fetus.

A crime Owen at the STP had avoided by generating the underlying gen sets artificially out of literally millions of DNA samples, collected around the turn of the millennium from the members of the armed forces of countries like the United States or China, and replacing the inactive DNA-components by the standard-fill-sequence to make identification by gen tests impossible. It had been a legal back door, but none of the gen sets would have developed under standard conditions, therefore they weren't legally considered as embryos or later fetuses. Leaving each of the children at Wolf Den with literally hundreds of parents behind – all of them already older than ninety or dead by the time the gen sets were developed – or none, for there was still the behavior caused by the philosophy of _shared responsibility is half responsibility_ and if hundreds of people are responsible, there'd be no one who had to do something – except with Shane.

There'd been a time when they'd feared the child would turn out to take too much after his father to explain it with genetic chance. But he luckily hadn't. Joe had told him once in an odd moment of weakness that the boy would look a lot like his mother with his fair hair, green eyes and the endless legs.

He had never met Leana Walsh, but according to the appearance she'd passed on to her son, she'd been a real beauty...

...the boy was fifteen now. And had never argued with his dad about the time when to be at home in the evening, hadn't thought about his first girlfriend, or worried about his results in school. He'd never broken the neighbors' windows or brought a mangy dog home with him.

Max remembered when he'd been at college. And he'd never been someone whom the girls looked after, but the boy would be such a one, if–

He had to stop these if's! They'd bring him nowhere!

  


He'd been in Owen's project from the very beginning. He'd been one of his lab assistants when he'd – being still at university – discovered the possibility not to optimize the physical abilities of the test animals, but to alter them completely. He remembered the astonishing results...

 

**2051**

"Maximillian! Watch out! The cage–" but it was too late. He was already circled by a squeaking cloud of rainbow colored mice flapping their wings and tousling his hair. Owen sighed and locked the door. "We'll need hours to catch them all..."

"I'm sorry." He picked one of the mice, a yellow one with green stripes, out of his shock where it had caught himself and put it back into the cage. "When's your meeting with the militaries?"

Negata sighed and wrung his hands. "In less than an hour. I'll need at least some of them..." "Professor, do you really believe it's a good idea to have them finance the researches?" he made a discomforted face. "When I think about the goings-on with these mutated flu-strands a while ago."

"I know, Max. But the only other institutions able to finance us are the combined companies. And they are even worse. I don't feel well about that, either. But–" he set his jaw. "We have to go on. We are so close to a real break-through that it's practically biting our noses."

"Ouch!" He caught the pink mouse in front of his face. "Literally. Did you have to tell them that?" The tone between him and his prof was pretty easy, but then Owen Negata was a genius, and not much older than Max himself.

The named genius laughed faintly. "In that case we should test them for enhanced intelligence. Ever played chess?" he asked a tiny blue rodent circling around his head and caught it by its tail. The mouse didn't answer.

"This general, Class, chills me somehow." Max successfully chased a couple of entrapped mice back into another cage that he handed the professor.

"Not an agreeable person. But he belongs to the committee." Owen sighed. "Wish me luck. I'm nervous."

 

**Now**

_"Good luck, Professor," he had smiled, "and don't worry, I'll catch the rest."_

Eleven years later he'd regretted that luck, when the STP had been started, when literally millions of gen sets – of human gen sets – had been created and altered statistically in an automated process, about thousand a day, going on for years. Of 100,000 thousand gen sets about a hundred were allowed to develop into babies, and in the end, about one of them became a member in the project.

So many deaths – of beings never considered alive.

And he regretted it even more when he witnessed the treatment the few survivors received during the years. There were no night, if he was on the base or at home, when he could close his eyes and not see the misformed fetuses and babies whose non-standard-DNA features had run wild somewhere in the process.

It was one thing to see a brightly covered lab mouse developing a hydrocephalus, it was something different to see a three-year-old child accidentally cutting her soft head open on a doorframe.

He had never asked what happened with those who were abandoned. He'd been barely able to stand what was done to those considered viable – within the realms of the project, which meant on interstellar battlefields or in the Hell – he didn't want to imagine what was done to those who lost even that small protection of usefulness...

He thought of the rainbow colored mice with butterfly wings so many years ago and wished they'd never existed.

  


Despite its disreputable appearance the Mendell had landed smoothly. GJ watched his 'freight' packing his few things up and prepared for deboarding. "What do you plan to do now?" he asked, violating his rule again.

The man shrugged. "I'm an educated man. I'm sure my service will be welcomed out here."

"What have you learned?"

At first, it seemed the man who'd called himself Tom Sawyer wouldn't answer, but then, when he was almost of the airlock he said: "To betray evolution."

  


GJ watched him walking across the landing field – towards the hangars. Somehow he was sure that when he returned after his next flight, he'd find out that Sawyer had left Montana with an unknown destination...

_Passing from these difficulties, all the other great leading facts in palaeontology seem to me simply to follow on the theory of descent with modification through natural selection. We can thus understand how it is that new species come in slowly and successively; how species of different classes do not necessarily change together, or at the same rate, or in the same degree; yet in the long run that all undergo modification to some extent. The extinction of old forms is the almost inevitable consequence of the production of new forms. We can understand why when a species has once disappeared it never reappears. Groups of species increase in numbers slowly, and endure for unequal periods of time; for the process of modification is necessarily slow, and depends on many complex contingencies. The dominant species of the larger dominant groups tend to leave many modified descendants, and thus new sub-groups and groups are formed. As these are formed, the species of the less vigorous groups, from their inferiority inherited from a common progenitor, tend to become extinct together, and to leave no modified offspring on the face of the earth. But the utter extinction of a whole group of species may often be a very slow process, from the survival of a few descendants, lingering in protected and isolated situations. When a group has once wholly disappeared, it does not reappear; for the link of generation has been broken._ [The Origin Of The Species] by Charles Darwin

And now, Homo Sapiens Sapiensis in the attempt to defend itself had modified itself to an extent beyond natural selection. And beyond control. And as its heirs escaped their treatment they were spreading the fear...

...of extinction.

  


_Survival of the fittest_ was a horribly simplified version of Darwin's theory that mankind feared would have to be applied to itself now. He remembered a still childish voice correcting that idea some months ago with _Among humans it's _survival of the seemingly fittest_._

_And of the most unscrupulous ones._ Max added grimly in his thoughts as he adjusted the hypercom receiver antennae embedded in the roof precisely. It would be his connection to the civilized worlds. This planet wasn't among the former colonies – his odyssey had crossed quite a few of them – and it had a rather bad reputation. But he was far from any settlements and there were a lot of people demanding for better adapted domestic breeds. He wouldn't betray evolution. He'd just speed it up a little.

He sighed. It was a nitpicking distinction, but he didn't have a choice. He'd never learned anything else.

  


Almost three years later Max was notified about a parcel and he told IPS a planet and a time to deliver. Despite his fears he was there when they came and he got an unmarked parcel with a tiny stuffed hedgehog. On the inside of the wrapping paper was written by hand:

_

Frances suffered a heart attack. She's fine at the moment, but the doctors doubt that she'll recover enough to care for her child again. William is currently staying with her sister in Canada, but he doesn't seem to be happy or welcomed there.  
I can arrange a transport for him if needed.  
Contact me as follows...  
J.  
p.s.: whatever you heard about the riots wherever you are: he's fine.

_

**Author's Note:**

> **APG:** [Automated Projectile Gun] pistol that fires projectiles ("mass shots") instead of the usual blasters or laser guns (LGs). APGs are used as service weapons for guards at the STP before March 2073 when they were replaced by more expensive blasters with multiple adjustments available, though out of use the storage magazines at the base still held a considerable amount of this kind of weapon and the needed ammunition for it.
> 
> **LG:** [Laser Gun] laser pistol (shorter and more handy in comparison with the larger Laser Rifle (LR)).
> 
> **PTS:** [Personal Training Start] (see: [Shattered Souls - Change!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/59216) (rated Mature))
> 
> **IP:** [Information Procurement] (see: [Shattered Souls - IP](http://archiveofourown.org/works/59253) (rated Mature))
> 
> **IPS:** [Interstellar Postal Service] something like UPS in space. ;)


End file.
